This Tuesday, the 27th, I will be attending the third round of Fashion Feud. The event is put together by Scion in association with SFFAMA. Think of it as Project Runway but in your face and live. Seriously, it’s a good time. Here’s the basic concept: Two designers, Lorie Dawn and Sally Marie Hahn in this round, have one hour to design and create one look. That look is then shown and judged by the audience and official judges.

It’s held at Rickshaw Stop, a cool bar/club/event space in SOMA on Fell St. between Van Ness & Franklin. Doors open at 7, free admission, 18+. It’s a great idea and the first two rounds were fun so, if you’re around and looking for something to do, stop by.

Fashion, friends, sushi, free alcohol, and little cakey things on a stick. Yupp, that pretty much sums up it up. Project SF was, in every sense of the word, fun. What is it? Project San Francisco is an annual fashion show/party featuring local San Francisco designers. The event is put together by the great organization SFFAMA which also hosts San Francisco Fashion Week.

Project san Francisco is an annual runway event that serves as a platform for recent graduates and alumni from fashion schools and universities. This event will showcase their collection as recent graduates embarking in their prospective career in the fashion industry.

So five collections, Elizabeth Kay, Karina Castrejon, NNEKA by Penelope Adibe, Revelation by M.E., and Zoe Hong, were shown. Overall, the collections were really quite good. Now, I tend to lean towards more dramatic fashions so Revelation and Zoe’s collections really impressed me. The end of the Karina Castrejon collection also wasn’t bad and started to tend more toward the dramatic side. I’m not a fashion snob. I’ll just clear that up. I understand the appeal of a simple skirt or pant however, for me at least, a design is always better when a designer infuses a bit of their personality into it.

Now, Elizabeth Kay and Karina Castrejon, along with Penelope Adibe, had cohesive, consistent, and well-made collections. The quality in construction was there and the three designers have distinct and unique styles that we all know are important for designers to have. I completely fell in love with Kay’s last look (seen below) and Castrejon had some amazing pieces in her collection. While watching the NNEKA collection, I had one of those “if only I were a woman” moments. Some of her dresses were kind of amazing. I totally recommend, if you are a woman or wearer of women’s clothing, to check out her site and/or some of the shops in the city that sell her stuff.

So the work, especially that of Zoe Hong, was actually really good. I will admit, I was a bit surprised. I mean, I wasn’t expecting the level of quality that the designers delivered. We all know that good fashion is hard to pull off, but they, along with most of the models, definitely surpassed my expectations and made a great show. If this is what san Francisco’s future holds, well then, I’m definitely excited.

Okay, I’ve never blogged or written professionally before so when people started suggesting I do it, I just blew the whole idea of it off. I’ve had people say that I would be great at it and that there really isn’t a reason for me not to have a blog. So, when the idea of blogging was brought to my attention again last week, I started considering it and came to the conclusion that it would be a good tool to have at my disposal.

I don’t want to make this first post too long because it’s about 11pm and I still have an essay to write and at least a few hours of sleep to get before I head to class at 7:30 so I’ll just give a brief intro to me and what I want this blog to be (excuse the rhyme). So my name is Mark, I’m 18, and I moved to San Francisco from Boston about 4 months ago. I’ve always been sort of fascinated with fashion not only as an art form and a personal statement of expression, but as a business. The industry of fashion is unique, full of talent, and exactly the industry I am sure I will fit perfectly into. I’m a photographer and I shoot mostly fine art stuff but I do, eventually, want to shoot mostly fashion. Eventually meaning years and years down the road of course.

So this blog, Mayhem, will follow my journey through the industry as well as the fashion culture in San Francisco. I’ll cover events, fashion shows, boutique openings, and whatever other fun things I find. So this should be interesting; enjoy.